An Address To The Shadow That Follows Me

I’m still your goddess of crumbs and scraps, chewing on suburban air
Let me tell you, it takes some guts to do that
amongst these pokerfaced love shacks and villa clones
 
I scour the darkness like a cute machine
Tell me, am I stubbornly retro and trashy in my dreams
or just curled up with portents and movie themes
 
I am not convinced by bargain bins, html, pantyhose
nature strips, auto-tune, or the next kitsch theory
 
I am not a theory
I am where I lay my dead
 
Should I wander elsewhere, a country called Freedonia
the lower east side of Middle Earth, the northern suburbs
of circumstance, amongst the daffodils
 
Shall I rise and become strange blue milk at dawn
or simple and rhythmic as the train to the city
Morning drapes on the fence as I stand in the doorway’s never
 
Remember when we used to do things
Time was a spider web, a new leaf, clitoral shadow
Now hours are suspended in my giddy rooms
 
The light sings in the ceiling, why do all these rooms change places
I’m clutching cords, folds and batteries as a way to steady things
In the end I’m meat, a minor character in a cli-fi novel
 
Should I go make some history, like a snake, the Red Sea
sputnik, or Trelawney scrabbling in hot sand for Shelley’s unburned heart
Even while I photocopy the past, my ears hum like stars
 
Let me tell you, there are places
where even you cannot follow me, where I can no longer go
 
As I walk into the sun, where are you, back there
with all the shadow friends, my shadow, friend